


Shadow Work

by irrationalno



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Shiro (Voltron), Crack, Don't Like Don't Read, F/M, Other past relationships mentioned - Freeform, POV Shiro (Voltron), S8 AU, post-war AU, whew show has been over for centuries now i forgot some canon stuff maybe this is just for fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:48:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29752236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irrationalno/pseuds/irrationalno
Summary: Shiro unretires and barely figures some stuff out after the war.
Relationships: Allura/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Shadow Work

The day he unlocked the door to his new apartment on rebuilt Altea, it rained fire. The place was keyed to his genetic signature alone, which meant only he and any surviving clone could access it (not factoring in the possibility of a craft crashing through the walls), but he loved the old-fashioned charm of manual, mechanical locks. He removed his shoes in their little niche, set down a bag of takeaway on the living room table, and sat down on the floor, absently fingering his pendant. The view from the tenth floor would have been apocalyptic if seen by humans who did not know. He’d first seen the fire rains during a meeting with his ground crew and realised Coran’s anecdotes and the briefing material had not truly prepared him for this.

Generous Altean and Olkari staff members had let him know the phenomenon did not adversely affect the local vegetation or human habitats, in fact it was beneficial to the health of the ecosystem. Fireproof tech was the default and Alteans had developed specialised clothing for other species that protected them from it thousands of years ago.

“Not the Voltron suits though,” Shiro had murmured.

“Fire in space is an entirely different matter,” said Merla. It made sense. “The Lions, however...”

Shiro ate his potstickers and recalled moving into his first apartment after school. After having grown up in Japan, then dorms around the US, opting to live with his boyfriend and co-worker in the adjoining town was a new adventure. It went downhill from there... until the Castleship.

He’d never told anyone how much he missed it. Everyone assumed he loved his time as Black Paladin—a title still used after his name—and he _did._ A little white lie of omission wouldn’t hurt.

Somehow, though, everyone had also assumed he would divide his time between the Garrison and wherever Atlas took him. The decision to resign and migrate to New Altea had come as a shock even to close friends.

Keith had called on hearing the news. “Congratulations on the new job, and don’t forget to send me pictures from your weekend hikes.”

“Thanks, buddy. Not sure I’ll have time for weekend hikes?”

“You’ll make time. Gotta say I didn’t think you’d ever settle down.”

“Rather settle down than settle.”

“Haha, good one. You seeing anyone new?”

Trust Keith to be blunt. “You think I’m chasing someone over there?”

“You don’t know what it’s like, so you won’t even know you’re doing it.”

“Stop reading the holowebs.” The chat had been some time after someone had plastered shots of him kissing Yamashita-san in public all over everything. It had blown up into a scandal for no good reason, given that the guy wasn’t anywhere in his chain of command and GG and JAXA literally collaborated all the time. Some reporters thought it was important to “critically examine the growing idolization of war heroes”. Shiro agreed with this noble goal, disagreed that violating his private life would help achieve that. Still dealing with trauma and the work of rebuilding, he was busy enough without this too on his plate.

So, fine, part of the reason for leaving Earth for perhaps good, was that.

The other part of it was in such fundamental internal conflict that it made his head hurt. Shiro figured he was in his 30s and could survive some compromises, however soul-crushing, in his quest for quiet dignity.

Work that fulfilled him, and a quiet apartment to watch the stars, the rain, the fire from. Two out of three, not bad. As the saying went, “you can’t have all three.”

It was Coran who prevented him from going full recluse. As the Queen’s right-hand man and an influential political mover in the post-War universe, Coran took Shiro under his wing as if Shiro was a rookie. Not even inaccurate. Even now Shiro’s innate diplomatic skill clashed with his finely tuned claustrophobia. It would be very easy to drown himself in work and let his public smile and intimidating reputation act as a placeholder for the rest. But Coran invited him on long trips as they followed the building teams, explaining finer points of Altean architecture, geography, history, linguistics and cuisine. Shiro had long suspected the infamous food goo was a specialised thing and there was more variety on the ground, just like with Earth pilots and space rations, and this was confirmed over a series of lunches.

“Of course, even though we are blessed to have the homeworld restored to us, complete with our ancient medicinal herbs, we shall not be recreating the long-gone past _too_ exactly.” Coran had introduced him to the local specialty, a lotus root dish that the Colony Alteans had infused with new flavour.

Shiro reflected, blowing on the broth to cool it.

“Because the universe has changed and New Altea is home to so many refugees and migrants from other war-torn planets.”

“Quite so. Balancing the particular character of Altea and the needs of the universe now will be difficult. But necessary. There is another reason.”

“The Council doesn’t want the Alteans to be considered a tragic remnant of a glorious civilisation. Alteans survived and have a role in creating the future, not just the past.”

Coran smiled. “I’m impressed.”

Shiro smiled back. “I’m no intellectual.”

“You do hide this thoughtful side of yourself, preferring the world sees only the dashing action hero.”

He snorted into the stew. “I’m a test pilot, it’s all they need to see.” At this, Coran raised his brows, shook his head, and changed subjects smoothly to indigenous fruit wines.

* * *

Shiro didn’t _like_ alcohol, but ever since he’d found out his tolerance for it was unnaturally high, he casually exploited it for socialising purposes. Like right now, sitting literally under Kolivan’s left arm, listening to the older man ramble about some kind of childhood luxite-harvesting adventure gone horribly wrong. He’d already downed about a gallon of Kythran griflum wine, keeping up with the Galra, while Matt and Hunk kept giving him the stink-eye.

“At this point, the Elders’ words flashed in my mind and I began to understand how much I had underestimated the challenges of the hike to the summit. The path would lead me through a forested area densely populated by Hurbac glowbees, and in this season they would be particularly aggressive...” Matt sniggered, then tried to mask it as a cough. Kolivan was prone to getting sentimental if interrupted in the flow of his storytelling.

Shiro stuck his tongue out at Matt and flipped his wrist communicator open. There was a single new message, a terse one from Keith explaining he’d be late to the gathering because of a non-medical emergency. Lance got the message at the same time and Shiro could see him shake his head across the table. No work email yet.

The reunion had, of course, been Lance’s idea. It wasn’t anything really momentous like The End of the War (capital letters courtesy Lance), but Atlas’ fifth birthday was a nice enough excuse to get the gang back together for some booze and chatter. The speedy development of non-Altean-powered warp drives on Earth notwithstanding, schedules for the luminaries of the war were still notoriously difficult to match up.

It was interesting to get back onboard the ship Shiro had mostly very depressing memories of. Someone higher up the hierarchy had done serious redesign on the interiors and he’d yet to comment on it. Sam smiled mysteriously at him when he’d flown in this time, showing him to his guest quarters, but then a lot of people were doing that lately. He’d been too busy to care to probe further.

In fact he had blocked out a few hours, planning to disappear after dinner. The test pilot gig he was doing for the New Altean fleet was pushing him in a way he hadn’t expected after the whole death and afterlife experience with his Lion. But GG staff got to see a lot of this work, so why was Sam smirking every few minutes? Kolivan was now sharing graphic details of what the angry mountain bees had done to him, prompting extremely unnecessary questions from Curtis and Veronica, who’d finally joined them after their duties. Veronica managed to high-five him, and Curtis a one-armed hug, without disengaging him from his captive spot next to Kolivan.

The first thing Shiro had done upon boarding Atlas was to visit the crystal chamber. The ship was no longer powered by it, but it was installed in a special spot, with a plaque outlining its significance. To be honest Shiro had partly agreed to this reunion because it gave him a reason to come here. He’d spent a quarter of an hour standing there, alone with the love and grief he had buried deep down.

“You were out of commission for 300 days because of some bees,” Pidge piped up, sounding pretty excited. “That’s almost a whole Earth year.”

“I had an excellent doctor to thank for surviving the ordeal with no lasting organ damage.” Antok’s father. Shiro had heard this entire story at least half a dozen times already. It had singlehandedly driven him to drink.

Matt raised a hand. “Uh, going to ask the obvious here. If these creatures can do so much damage to the Galra, how come no one ever—”

“—How come no one tried to raise metric fucktons of them to fight Zarkon?” Lance finished triumphantly.

“Even better, why didn’t we sic Lions full of bees on Zarkon?”

“...”

“Isn’t that technically blasphem—”

“Lions can mindmeld with sentient creatures and are literally godlike so millions of bees gotta count as sentient enough—”

“Guys. Dinner?”

Kolivan unwrapped his sweaty arm from around-above Shiro’s shoulder at the sight of mouthwatering dishes fresh from the ship canteens. Atlas was docked in Arizona so no real space technology had gone into the preparation of the meal.

Shiro was a little surprised, and very touched, to find that dinner included Altean lotus root stew. Someone had managed to find out it was his new favourite food and pass the message on the kitchen staff on Atlas. Hopefully whoever it was hadn’t seen him devour bowlfuls of it at his favourite hole-in-the-wall streetside joint back home. Because that was something that had happened.

Iverson showed up soon enough, with his fiancé in tow. Shiro helped himself to some vegetables, sitting back more comfortably. Of course the informer had to be Coran.

Sam pushed the pot of rice back to him for seconds, smiling warmly. His eyes looked suspiciously wet. For one horrifying second Shiro wondered if it was actually his birthday. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d forgotten it, and the fact that it was Leap Day in the Gregorian calendar didn’t help.

Right after the end of All That, Shiro had thought for a while to settle down on his home planet for good, whether or not he stayed with the Garrison. He’d even gone back to his grandfather’s house in Hokkaido after a long stint of helping with reconstruction. The decision to give up captaincy of Atlas had been an easy one. He simply could not see himself staying with the Garrison after everything he’d gone through... you don’t just fit into your old life after coming back from death. The firm conviction that he needed to embrace difficulty and cut a new path in his new life haunted him while he moved from one organic diplomatic challenge to another.

Iverson had asked him to seriously consider teaching, pointing out that his course loads would be kind and he already had some experience and more than enough aptitude. But something in Shiro had turned away from that very sensible suggestion.

At the peak of the quietest existential crisis an intergalactic celebrity could suffer, he’d fucked his way through half the known universe. No, that was an exaggeration, but sometimes you had to try stupid, guaranteed-to-fail solutions. While perfectly pleasurable in terms of sex and companionship, he’d been forced to conclude it was the wrong direction for him. He’d shacked up with Kolivan for a while, discovering facets to his personality no friend-with-benefits needed to. Threesomes with Veronica and Curtis, strictly after retirement because he was honourable, dammit. One of the Olkari landscape designers he worked with during reconstruction. And someone on the board of directors at JAXA, a whirlwind five-month romance, who’d still kicked him out politely after he trashed his palatial Tokyo digs in the depths of a PTSD meltdown.

Oh yeah, the quiet existential crisis revolved inexorably around that one little thing.

Shiro raised a glass in silent toast to the woman responsible for it.

There was someone else he had succeeded in going all evening without thinking about, and now that he was sinking his spoon into some impossibly fluffy dessert, failure flooded his consciousness. His face felt hot. Happy conversation floated around him, words and laughs merging into background noise and re-emerging.

“—who would have guessed he’d basically get back into the same job? He talked up needing something brand new so much.” Pidge was complaining loudly to Hunk.

“Living on a magically un-destroyed planet is a pretty unique experience, right Shiro?” Hunk waggled his eyebrows at Shiro.

Shiro bit hastily into a large strawberry-ish fruit. It was so sweet the juice went down his windpipe. The next thing he knew, he was on his feet, Kolivan was thumping his massive palm on his back and Pidge was holding a glass of water up to him.

“Quiznak,” said Shiro, finally inhaling, thinking _don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry._

This was how he found himself staring at Keith, who had turned up fashionably late, looking smug but also like he’d literally teleported out of thin air. Kosmo manifested in front of Keith within a split second of Shiro’s thought.

“You have whipped cream on your shirt,” said a voice from behind Keith. Shiro’s knees wobbled, and not because of Kosmo’s affections.

“Pri—Your Royal Highn—All—”

“Why did you never tell me?” Allura picked Kosmo up with one hand and deposited him on the dinner table. Her crown was tilted to one side and her breasts were heaving in a very tight Court Business dress, the one with the genuine turquoise embroidered into the neckline, and Shiro was so fucked all six of his languages had deserted his tongue. The dinner party had devolved into pure chaos and dumbstruck glee.

“Tell you what,” Shiro argued on autopilot. He knew she'd been invited and had just not found the time to attend, according to Coran... wait...

“I thought you were one of the bravest, most principled, kindest people I have ever known. I never imagined you would be a coward over such a thing!”

“Bravest...? I’m...”

“Do you still not know I am connected to the crystal and—”

“What? Of course I didn’t know??”

“Shiro, why did you never tell me?” Her expression was equal parts exhaustion and sadness and Shiro was paralysed.

“Tell her what? How many memos did I miss? Matt, what’s going on?”

“Does it look like I have any fucking idea what is going o—Kosmo NO I didn’t even eat that yet!”

“Down, boy. Shiro is in love with Allura and thinks he’s too damaged to be worthy of her even though Allura likes him back.”

In the silence that followed this statement, only Kosmo’s contented sounds gobbling the lamb curry could be heard. Keith ducked his head after dropping this little bomb and started scritching Kosmo’s ears.

“You deserve so much better,” Shiro said.

“You are the best there is,” Allura said.

Someone whistled at the back of the room. Someone else made mock gagging sounds. Shiro was mortified.

“You don’t mean that,” he said, commanding the tears to stop sliding traitorously from his eyes.

“I do mean that. I don’t care that you are a ‘mentally ill adrenalin junkie space slut manic pixie dream boy’ because you are _my Black Paladin,_ my friend, my teammate whom I miss.”

“Space slut?” Pidge’s stage whisper voiced everyone’s thoughts at this moment.

“Tabloids,” Matt explained.

“I am so sorry I made you worry and disrupted your work, Allura, I never—”

“You worry about me all the time.”

“I am your faithful subject.”

“Do you really not want more?”

Shiro took a deep breath. “I do.”

“Now kiss,” someone shouted. Coran and Sam were wiping at their eyes. Wristpads were raised to screenshot the inevitable. Shiro found himself walking to Allura in a daze. Her gaze flickered over his face, before slipping to his chest, and okay, he did have objectively nice pectoral definition...

Her cool fingers on his skin made him shiver. “You have been wearing this for five _years_.”

On a simple gold chain around his neck, tucked under his shirt, Shiro wore the crystal she had given up for him to power his prosthetic arm. He had changed the prosthetic twice since then but repurposed the powering crystal into a pendant... one he wore secretly, guiltily.

Or so he’d thought all this time.

“You gave us what was left of your home. You gave and gave. Allura, I only took—”

“Good, so for once, I can take.”

Atlas lit up a brilliant, near-blinding white when they kissed.

* * *

Later they found themselves on the terrace of Shiro’s home on New Altea, Allura’s knees tucked up to her chin. Shiro was lying behind her, caressing the glowing marks on her naked back. The summer night stretched wide with stars above their heads.

“I know what the witch did to you. Are you upset that I essentially read your emotions?”

“It’s not like you did it on purpose. You didn’t even know I was wearing your crystal.”

She turned to look at him. Shiro sat up, gathering her into his arms, kissing the corners of her huge, indignant eyes. She pulled away from his lips though. “Do you know how many suitors I’ve turned away? How long I thought you would confess someday... how it felt... to have the balance of the universe restored, my home returned, the spirits of my ancestors finally at peace, to have friendship and new hope and creation across the land, and yet...”

“Want to hear my confession?”

Allura laughed. “I feel as if I am squeezing it out of you.”

“You can squeeze anything out of me,” Shiro said, earning a glare from Allura. “But what I mean is...”

There were sparkling points of light in the air right around the terrace. They looked like fireflies, a connection to Shiro’s childhood that raised his emotions to an even more intense pitch. “What I mean is... I stayed away because I want everything. I want to make your world my home, I want to be at your side until I die, I want to have children with you. I want everything, but I couldn’t imagine being with... an actual queen. You know my record with diplomacy. Not to sound like a period drama but the gulf between us is... there for a reason.”

Allura held out her hand and one of the fireflies landed on the back of her palm. “I admit, it’s hard to see where your self-esteem issues end and an actual practical problem begins. However, I would never demand public engagements from you as my husband, Shiro.” The words went straight to his dick, even as he nodded his understanding. “I don’t know how it worked or works in your culture... but it was never like that on Altea. My mother continued to work as a historian after marrying the Crown Prince.”

“Ah...”

“I do want heirs. How fortunate if they should be children who are loved and conceived in love.”

“I mean I still assumed you would have them with someone else who you love and who is good enough for you,” said Shiro, knowing that this mysterious other figure had remained nameless and faceless in his most tortured imagination.

“You know what it means when you make assumptions?”

“It makes an a—hey, where did you pick that one up?”

Allura rolled her eyes. “I _am_ co-authoring an Altean-English dictionary.”

“Allura, I just. I don’t want you to be less than what you are, because that wouldn’t be _who_ you are. I couldn’t work out how to respect that while dealing with my shit. You deserve someone who doesn’t get distracted by their own trauma. I don’t know what it’s like to go through what you have but I don’t want to make it worse. Quiznak, I’m no good with words.”

Allura laughed. There was no humour in it. “I won’t ask yet because we have too much to catch up on, but now I see. Someone hurt you so much you think functional relationships and mental illness cannot coexist.”

“Ouch,” said Shiro weakly, internally stunned.

“Well, then let me know if you decide you want to try it with someone who does not think that way.”

“Will _you_ ever forgive me for keeping you at arms’ length all these years?”

“The Queen has friends and alcohol too. And ears. A little bird told me all about that time you almost killed fifty Galra insurrectionists single-handedly when I was in bed with a high fever.”

“Is that already in the history books? Can’t you just write in that they got violent diarrhoea instead?” Just remembering that night made Shiro angry.

And every time, affirmed his decision to move to New Altea, the nearest he could be under the circumstances.

Allura clapped him on the shoulder so hard he wheezed. “You have no idea how good you are. I wondered how those others let you go.”

Yes, she knew. Shiro wouldn’t pretend he wasn’t flattered. “Says the woman who led her people through the most dangerous genocidal attack since the end of the War while barely able to stand up. And, I left them.”

“You’re the one who does that, I know.”

“There’s an exception.”

In response, Allura wrapped one hot hand around him, her grip almost painful. Shiro had never been more turned on in his life.

They stared at each other. “I figured you want to take it slow, even though we’ve lost time. Sure we’re not going too fast?”

“We aren’t exactly teenagers, nor is this our first relationship.”

Shiro kissed her more greedily this time, wondering if she’d taken relief in others like he had, aware that her status made everything more complicated, but jealously, bitterly happy that someone better than him (to her liking) had failed to materialise while he’d been burning through his bridges.

“You know, I grew up watching fireflies out in the woods on summer nights.” He’d switched to Classical Altean, surrendering to the need to preen and show off his skill.

“Fireflies? What is this word?”

“Uh, those?” Shiro switched back to Common Galactic.

“Oh, no, these are bees.”

“Glowing bees.”

“Indeed.”

Shiro looked at her, then at the little bee harmlessly parked on Allura’s elegant hand. “Let’s go back to bed? You have tours of the permaculture hub and new trade guidelines to review tomorrow.”

“Yes, let us.”

**Author's Note:**

> damn idt i ever posted an actual shallura fic before. enjoy, hopefully?


End file.
